Slow Week for Shogi

Nothing much has happened in my Shogi world lately. I did start reading the Fairbairn book "Shogi for Beginners" and I've also progressed through more of the tsume shogi book I purchased at Mitsuwa. Surprisingly, the Fairbairn book is going slower because the first set of problems are much harder than anything I've come across in the other book. It's definitely not what I'd expect from a "for Beginners" book, but that's probably a good thing. Glancing through the other chapters, it looks like there's a lot of great material.

I also purchased a basic wood folding shogi set with plastic pieces from an eBay seller in Japan, but that has not shown up yet. The EMS tracking number I was given indicates that it left Japan on August 25, but I still have not received it. I'm not feeling all that great about this at the moment and I suspect I'll never see the board. When a seller's first email states that he won't refund the cost of shipping if it doesn't show up, my instinct is to say he's not going to send it. I hope I'm wrong about this one.

Update: The EMS tracker now shows that the package left Osaka on September 5.  I wonder what they did with it for the past 11 days...perhaps they like Shogi.